Opposite Contraries by Emily Carr Read Free Book Online

life, the only one life in him.
    Edith and Henry are going. She told me last night and cried, for the problem of Henry is becoming acute. He is so sane in some ways and so idiotic in others. He has run wild for years, roaming where he will. The thought of shutting such a one up is dreadful, yet he needs someone to control him. Edith can’t, [being] away at business all day. I can’t; he does not live in myhouse but their own and resents intrusion. His days are spent in absolute nothingness. I feel if he only had some definite task, however light, it would be miles better for his mind and body. But who’s to set him a job? You have to work with him every moment. I’ve tried it; the minute you leave, Henry sits down and quits. He can work but he can’t stick. He hops on one foot all over the place. Thump, thump, thump. Thank goodness the lady below is out all day. It almost sends me crazy. He says he can’t help it, but I feel it is his empty useless life that turns all his thoughts in on his nerves. It prods them into all these exasperating gymnastics; he rolls his eyes and his tongue to give one the whorlies. Yet withal he is perfectly sane.
OCTOBER 5TH
    […] I’ve been looking at A.Y. Jackson’s mountains in the C.N.R. Jasper Park folder. Four good colour prints but they do not impress me.
They might be done from photographs, magnificent subjects but decorative and commercial.
Now,
I
could not do one tenth as well but somehow I don’t
want
to do mountains like that.
They don’t feed or impress you, a look or two does. They have passed through his eyes but not his soul. His work never stirs me. It is easy enough to see for he is resplendent in illustration. Lots of it is interesting in colour and design, but it is not choice or subtle.
Shut up, me! Are you jealous and ungenerous? I don’t think it is that
. Something about the man riles me. He has one of those noses I never get on with anyway.
    Susie is making love wildly to Sammy but he is morose and will have none of her. I ought to get rid of him but it seems so low down; it bursts the lamp of hospitality to drown after you have entertained and cosseted the wounded beast back to life.
    Three visitors to the studio tonight. They sat in a row like three flower pots full of dirt and nothing growing in them. Stodgy, oh my! If it had not been for Susie and the dogs I’d have sobbed myself to sleep in front of their three noses. And as they exited, the man moaned out, “Your things have simply thrilled me.” Good Lord, if they take their thrills thus, how
do
they take their “bores”?

TRIP TO CHICAGO
1933
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6TH
    [written in Chicago]
    [
…
] It is dark today, brooding and oppressed. The lake looks cruel, bottomless and hard. The wind has dropped and Chicago is still and sullen. No letters from Toronto or elsewhere. I did expect to hear today. My first letter to them was posted Thursday. Drat the mails! Or don’t they love me up there any more and are indifferent alike to my woes and to my coming?
Bess wished it was me coming for the Ex to stay with her instead of Sara Robinson — maybe she’s found Sara far more entertaining and won’t care if I never come. Can you wonder? Sara (I’ve met her) is young and attractive and clever and amiable.
Bess has reason to know me for a spit-cat and Lawren will be up to his top hair in the exhibition and too busy to think of old me at all. Emily, don’t you know by now that you’re an oddment and a natural-born solitaire? There is no cluster or sunburst about you. You’re just a paste solitaire in a steel claw setting. You don’t have to be
kept in a safety box or even removed when the hands are washed.
Tired, sick to death of Chicago and it’s snowing. No word from Toronto. What mails! Or is it the folks? Suppose I went without hearing and Sara Robinson was there? It might be awkward for Bess. But I’ll go when the week is up here, letter or no letter.
NOVEMBER
    [Written on the train from Chicago to